Midsummer madness

Last updated at 12:43 27 July 2004

Clueless, spineless, self-indulgent and self-regarding... some Tories seem determined to spend another summer in navel-gazing defeatism.

Once again, the party appears united only in its ability to stab its leader in the back. From the silken disloyalty of Michael Portillo on the Left to the 'friends' of Iain Duncan Smith on the Right, the whiff of treachery is everywhere.

Meanwhile, the headless chickens on the backbenches scratch and flutter over suggestions that ageing, underperforming MPs should make way for new blood.

How pitifully the Tories are lapsing into their bad old ways. Only two weeks ago, they seemed well on the way towards regaining their fighting spirit.

But that was before coming third in two by-elections and before Mr Howard fluffed his challenge to Tony Blair over the Butler report on Iraq intelligence.

According to a weekend poll, the party is at level-pegging with the Lib Dems, while a Prime Minister who is disbelieved and distrusted by the public suns himself complacently beside Cliff Richard's pool in Barbados. But then, why should he worry, when his main opponents seem to crumble at the first sign of a setback?

Yet before the fickle Tories give up the real battle and tear themselves apart instead, shouldn't they look at the other side of the equation?

Yes, Michael Howard failed to land a punch on Mr Blair last week. But in previous Parliamentary exchanges he was utterly deadly in questioning the handling of Iraq intelligence - questions the Prime Minister conspicuously failed to answer.

The question of trust is still a ticking time-bomb for this Government (which, let it not be forgotten, also had disastrous by-election results).

Just as significantly, the Tory leader is coming up with credible and appealing policies - on choice in the NHS and education, for example - that are setting the political agenda. Indeed, isn't it fascinating to observe how New Labour, which has no principles of its own, is reduced to filching his ideas?

Of course the Opposition still has miles to go before it can reconnect with the voters. But at least Mr Howard knows where to go and has taken the first steps. Is it really beyond the Tories to spend this summer finding ways to support him, instead of strewing obstacles in his path?

Insult to injury

From a ruling party that has so crassly precipitated a pensions crisis while presiding over a collapse in savings comes a 'big idea' that would in theory allow millions to boost their retirement income.

Under the sticking plaster 'solution' from Labour policymakers (who botch everything they touch) elderly homeowners would take out loans on part of the value of their homes, which would be converted into a weekly payment from the state on top of their pensions. Those loans would be repaid, with interest, when they die and their properties are sold.

How convenient. This Government has decimated Britain's private pensions - once the best funded in Europe - through huge stealth taxes. It has allowed the basic state pension to become pitifully inadequate. It has looked the other way while the savings ratio - the money we set aside for a rainy day - has halved.

And now, with pressure growing on more and more of us to work until we drop, it proposes to lend us back our own money!

This scheme would further undermine thrift, discriminate against those who rent and encourage pensioners to disinherit their children, simply to make ends meet.

A big idea? Hardly. When so many have been denied the prospect of a comfortable old age, doesn't it smack more of a stunt by the very politicians who created the mess in the first place?